Excess is part of the culture

Drink and bad behaviour has been part of English football's culture long before Jimmy Greaves became the first and best-known player to admit to alcoholism.

One of England's greatest players, Bobby Moore, captain of the 1966 World Cup winners, was viewed with awe by his team-mates for his "hollow-legged" ability to drink heavily but still be able to beat everybody else in training the next morning.

Team drinking was tolerated, if not encouraged, by team managers for the way it brought players together.

George Best was the first celebrity casualty of the new era, his meteoric career snuffed out by alcohol and other excesses - his relationships wrecked, his wealth drained.

Although Best has been warned that another drink will kill him after the failure of his liver, he has retained an aura of tacky glamour to this day. And, where Best left off, Paul Gascoigne took over.

Pictures of him during the notorious "dentist's chair" incident in a Hong Kong night-club on the eve of Euro 96 highlighted not only Gascoigne's shortcomings but how the drinking ethos was endemic at the highest level.

He also beat up his wife Sheryl in 1996 and, now trying to rebuild his career once again at Everton, he has finally had to admit the grip that alcohol has had over him.

Tony Adams, captain of England and Arsenal, confessed to being an alcoholic in the early Nineties and has been a regular attender at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He has now gone for five years without a drink.

He was jailed for three months for crashing his car through a garden wall after a barbecue party at a friend's house culminated in an all-day drinking session. He was four times over the drink-drive limit. Now he is preparing to open an addiction treatment centre for fellow players hooked on drink, drugs or gambling.

His former teammate Paul Merson broke down in tears at a 1994 press conference to confess to all three vices. He spent six weeks in a clinic for treatment to cure his addictions.

Merson later moved to Middlesbrough but demanded a transfer because he feared the drinking culture at the club would lead him back into bad behaviour.

Stan Collymore was given one last chance by Leicester City to establish himself in the Premiership after a long history of bad behaviour - which included punching his former girlfriend Ulrika Jonsson in the face in a French bar during the 1998 World Cup.

He repaid them by setting off a fire extinguisher in drunken antics at a training break in La Manga, Spain, and was fined £30,000. Soon after he was off-loaded to play out the rest of his career in obscurity.

Another example of brainless behaviour and bad timing was Robbie Fowler's night out in combat gear with his new Leeds United teammates while the jury was still considering their verdicts in the trial of Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate.

Fowler's night out was not his first drinkrelated episode, and he was disciplined for simulating snorting cocaine along the goal line during a derby match with Everton. International colleague Steve Gerrard was also embarrassed in the headlines when caught out drinking late before joining an England squad.

Three months ago the so-called Heathrow Five of Chelsea stars, including persistent drink offender Jody Morris - he had previously been sentenced to 150 hours community service after being convicted of assaulting a drunken street brawl - got so drunk they shocked and offended American tourists grieving over 11 September.

The group - including England international Frank Lampard and Eidur Gudjohnsen - were reported to have stripped off and vomited in their drunken spree.

Three members of England's under-21 squad - Lee Hendrie, Matt Jansen and Seth Johnson - were banned from international football for three months after breaking a curfew to sneak out for a drink.